Pasta Fagioli Soup

My husband and I like to lead a simple life. Some people strive for drama and chaos, but not us. I generally make simple meals because I find that small ingredient lists of delicious things make the best meals. This time however, I wanted an extra simple meal. There is nothing complicated about a hearty pasta fagioli soup. This version tastes nearly identical to Olive Garden’s Pasta e Fagioli, full of assorted beans, beef, pasta, and wonderful seasoning.

Pasta Fagioli Soup Recipe
(Makes about 8 servings)

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

1 small onion, chopped (equivalent to 1 cup)

1 large carrot, chopped (equivalent to 1 cup)

3 stalks celery, chopped (equivalent to 1 cup)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes

2 cans (8 ounces each) tomato sauce

1 can (15 ounces) beef broth

1 can (15 ounces) red kidney beans, with liquid

1 can (15 ounces) white kidney beans, with liquid

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

8 ounces ditalini pasta, precooked weight

Directions:

In a large pot, over Medium heat, cook the ground beef.

Drain the liquid from the cooked beef (if any). If you use ground beef with a lower fat ratio then you will have little to no liquid to drain.

This is comfort and simplicity at one of its finest moments. Traditionally there is no meat in pasta fagioli, but it adds a lot of great flavor to the soup. With a little work and adjusting the amounts of the ingredients I bet you can make this a vegetarian meal that is more like a classic pasta fagioli. (Having not done that yet, I can’t tell you exactly how to tweak everything.)

I used frozen carrots because that’s what I had in the house in case you’re wondering why they have a funny frosty look to them and magical ridges that aren’t found in nature.

Cooking tip: Chop an onion and store it in the freezer. I don’t know about you, but I hate to chop onions. To save time (and tears), I chop onions that I’ve just bought from the store and freeze them in a freezer friendly bag. Once thawed, they taste just as fresh as the day I bought them. Onions are a popular ingredient in soups and with soup season in full swing I’ll have them handy at a moment’s notice.

I used white and red kidney beans and ditalini pasta. I love ditalini because the short little tubes are the perfect shape for a soup. One of the reasons why I love this dish is that you can swap these main ingredients for the type of beans and pasta that you have handy and the soup will still turn out delicious. Remember that we’re going for a no-fuss night!

The soup looks a little thin once all the ingredients are in the pot, but it will thicken up as it cooks.

This thick soup has so many textures going on, with the ground beef, veggies, beans, and pasta. In fact, I didn’t add any garnish to the soup because it just doesn’t need it.

The seasoning is spot on. Together with the canned tomatoes and beef stock, this soup is rich and full of fantastic flavors.

This recipe makes a big pot of soup. If you have a large family then it’s the perfect size. If you’re a family of two, like my me and my husband then you’ll have a lot of left overs. You know how some meals don’t reheat to taste as good as the first time you made it? This is NOT one them. My husband grabbed it on the go for work lunches for almost a whole week and it reheated perfectly. 🙂

You know what else is great about this soup? It’s a low budget wonder!

There are many lovely variations of pasta fagioli. If you have a version, how does it differ from this one?

I am making this tonight for the first time. Never had it before. My question is , where I live (small country town) I couldn’t find ditalini pasta. I googled it and it said I could use elbow noodles as a substitute. Any ideas on this?

I LOVE pasta fagioli – but I don’t think I’ve ever tried making it at home! Which is really quite silly since my family is super italian and my grandma used to make it all the time! I’m going to have to make this soon!

Made this delicious looking and tasting soup today, and my husband and I loved it. We’re happy to have lots of leftovers to enjoy, too. It made a hearty and satisfying meal on a very cold night. Thanks for a great recipe. It’s a keeper!

This soup looks delicious and comforting. I may try to convert it to a slow cooker soup, though, because I’m lazy and can’t get excited about cooking after work. Lol! Thanks for sharing this recipe. :o)

Lol… I know the feeling. I’ve made this soup on the weekend and re-heated as leftovers during the week. PS, it still tastes great. Let me know if you end up converting this for the slow cooker.
I appreciate you stopping by. 🙂

Hi Tina. I made this soup yesterday. I didn’t do it in the slow-cooker because it was a Saturday and, with all the snow we got yesterday, I was home all day. It’s delicious and perfect for a snowy weekend at home. You weren’t kidding when you said it makes a lot! I think I’ll probably be enjoying this well into the summer. 😉

Jackie, it’s funny (at least to me) that you say that because the bean liquid grosses me out too! Lol. But for this recipe, you DO INCLUDE the liquid in the recipe. I took a chance and I’m glad I did. 🙂

This was fabulous! Made so much and it is so hearty. I didn’t have any onion on hand so I used onion powder. And I threw in about a half cup of chopped broccoli so I could get it out of the fridge. This tasted so good! I’m off to the store to get some crusty bread so we can eat this for dinner! Thanks for sharing!

Made this for dinner tonight–so good!! I made it vegetarian by omitting the ground beef & beef broth (Use vegetable broth). At the end when I added the cooked pasta I also added diced zucchini and a bunch of fresh chopped spinach. Thank you for the recipe

It turned out amazing, we have plenty of leftovers for a couple of days. I plan on freezing part of the soup in two smaller amounts for soup and sandwich nights. The worse part of this soup recipe is waiting for the carrots to be cooked, because the smell is awesome. Thanks again for such a great recipe.

I’m making this today, its cold and foggy here in northern California sounds like the perfect soup for that kind of day. I don’t have the same veggies but plan on using cabbage, carrots, celery, tomatoes and Italian sausage. Can’t wait to have a steaming bowl with some crusty french bread. Thanks for sharing this great soup!

I didn’t read the narrative with this recipe and decided that reading the recipe it did not sound like it would make enough for my family so I doubled it. that being said I now have a 6 qt crock pot full to the top without any noodles in it. lol…but I have already been in and sneaked 2 bowls of the soup again without noodles because it is so so so good!!!! Hopefully come supper time when I cook up the noodles and serve it to my family I am not too full to try it with the noodles. Great addition to my soup rotation is definitely something I will continue to make over and over.

This recipe sounds awesome. I am so glad to see Linda doubled the recipe. I am making this for a meeting tomorrow night of about 16 women. I will definitely need to double. I will include this recipe to take home because I feel confident everyone will love it.

Trust me… I had the same hesitation at first but it’s great. You could do without, but it will likely be very thick and not soup like. You might want to try to substitute with water instead of the bean liquid but I wouldn’t know how much to suggest because I always use the bean liquid.

I am making this right now and, like lots of your other readers, it smells and looks delicious. Can’t wait to have a taste and enjoy it for lunches all week. Keep the comfort food recipes coming — only way to get through a long Canadian winter!

I made this tonight and it was awesome. All I had were black beans and they were just perfect. The only pasta I had was bowtie, and that worked great too. I did add a splash of the Merlot that we would drink later with the soup and after it cooked down it added a very rich flavor. Definitely will make this one again. Thanks

Our new “MOST FAV” soup! We even used the recipe for our time on the Daniel Fast – minus the beef and broth (veggie broth instead.) If you like add-ins, I put a 1/2 bad of shredded cole slaw mix – we loved the cabbage in this soup!!!

Made this tonight for dinner, added ,16 oz of beef broth, all liquid from beans, and it came out very thick, nothing like Olive Garden, so I added more broth and extra seasoning it was extremely thick like a chili. It looks more like the soup now and smells good. Can’t wait to try it. Wanted to make the Beer bread but I gave away all my loaf pans to my daughter 🙁 so I had nothing to make it in.

This looks awesome. Going to make a double batch this weekend and send some of it back with my daughter. Talked to her last night and she said she hadn’t grocery shopped in weeks. She was putting together a very sad dinner. She’s coming home for the weekend and I’ll send this back with her to stock her freezer! Thanks for the great recipe!